That One Video Game Level
by LuciferBLANK
Summary: After a weird encounter with Crash Bandicoot, Cortex relives the same events over and over again, and he finally finds a way to stop it, but it comes at a price. TW: Blood, Psychotic issues Sorry for the spacing issues! FFN is really crappy with spacing everywhere.


Cortex was absolutely done. Day after day, year after year his plans would be ruined! That wretched failed mutation Bandicoot was going to be the end of him! Every day he would defeat him. How could one defeat Cortex? His brain held multitudes of knowledge from across the dimensions. How could a brainless bandicoot defeat him? An absolutely dumb and stupid bandicoot had been foiling his plans of world domination for years!

Cortex sighed, he still couldn't find the answer to this seemingly unsolvable question. Maybe he would never find out. It annoyed Cortex to no end! How could this even be possible?

The big headed man decided to actually sleep that night, he had to work on blueprints for a new invention the next day and would rather do it well rested than running on 5 cups of coffee and a wumpa fruit flavored energy drink.

Slowly walking over to bed, Cortex felt his eyes drooping after being awake all week doing nothing but tinkering on machines and trying to find ways to please Uka Uka.

The mask was still angered at Cortex for failing to eliminate Crash Bandicoot after their teaming up to defeat the Evil Twins. Cortex just hoped the ancient mask would give him more time to finally understand why Crash kept winning their constant battles.

Cortex pulled himself into the bed, the mattress was old but the man honestly was too busy working on other things to worry about his bed. Soon enough, Cortex zonked off into whatever dreams he would have about ruling the world and having the entire human population at his fingertips.

The next morning, Cortex awoke to a loud noise. It sounded like glass cracking then shattering into billions of pieces. He groggily got out of bed and went to where he heard the noise.

Surprisingly, he was able to reach his lab, where he peered through the door and saw the one and only, Crash Bandicoot, rummaging around the hundreds of contraptions and potions that were on Cortex's table, which stretched around the room.

The yellow man wondered what the Bandicoot was searching for, though it didn't exactly look as if he was searching for something. Maybe he was messing around? But if he was messing around, why the hell would he be in Cortex's lair?

Cortex wondered to himself before slowly and quietly pulling out his trusty ray gun. Switching it to the setting that he used on Coco to paralyze her, the man slowly aimed the gun through the barely cracked door.

Right as he was going to pull the trigger, the orange bandicoot noticed that he was being watched. Crash panicked as he saw the gun aimed at him through the door and quickly ran towards the window he had shattered for the second time since his first visit to the lair. Jumping through the already broken window, Crash let out his iconic "Uh oh!" as he fell to the water below the building.

Of course, Cortex had tried shooting Crash while he was escaping, but failed to shoot him every single time. Rage overcome his body. That was one of his best shots at ever capturing the bandicoot! Alas, he wasted it by being too hesitant.

The man facepalmed and stood there dejectedly before going into the lab the Bandicoot was previously in and started to fix everything up, seeing as Crash had broken a few minor inventions on the table while snooping around.

This only increased Cortex's anger more. The bald man ended up spending the rest of the day, which was supposed to be devoted to working on blueprints for more useful things, cleaning up the mess created by that damn orange marsupial.

The next day progressed the same way. The exact same events as the day before occurred again. Crash broke into Cortex's lab, broke some machines, and ended up outrunning Cortex's gun.

Cortex was beyond outraged. He went to fix the broken gizmos as Uka Uka, instead of criticizing him for not capturing Crash, laughing his "head" off while watching Cortex struggle to fix the machines while trying to not damage them further through the pure rage the man was experiencing.

After hours of tedious work, Cortex flopped onto his bed and immediately passed out from exhaustion.

You may think that the third time's the charm. The third time that this exact predicament occurs that Cortex will successfully shoot Crash with the ray gun and keep him hostage.

No.

This entire thing happens over and over again. Cortex is descending into even farther madness as he fails to capture Crash from his incredibly vulnerable point in his lab for months.

Cortex has been going through the exact same thing for months, and has never gotten it right. This man is going psychotic due to this fact.

So instead of going through the same thing again that very day, Cortex loses it. It's like when you keep getting a game over on a certain part of that level, and have to redo the level again and again because that certain point was so far into the map.

Cortex has absolutely lost it, he constantly wakes up twitching and screaming. It was almost as if he was calling to be locked up into a mental asylum.

Then, one day, Cortex finally has had enough. He has finally given up on that damn video game level and is about to go outside to smash the game disk into pieces. And so, he tries to do exactly that.

Reaching under his old bed, the yellow man grabs a hold of an old revolver. There were bad memories connected to this gun, but hopefully now, a good one could be connected to it.

Cortex bolts to the lab door, which again, is creaked open a few inches. Crash Bandicoot is inside the lab, messing around on Cortex's work table.

Cortex reaches for the gun in his pocket, loads in one bullet, and prepares to fire.

The man doesn't care of the consequences that this will create. Time slows, Crash has not yet noticed Cortex, the man's hands slowly pull the trigger, and…

BANG!

Blood splatters across the room! Cortex has finally done it! Cortex has eliminated Crash Bandicoot! The first step to world domination has been completed!

Cortex laughs a manic and psychotic laugh that would chill any person to the spine. The man pulls his hair and laughs even louder. His voice is booming through the castle. Uka Uka appears over the psychotic man's shoulder, confused at the state of Cortex before seeing the dead body of Crash Bandicoot, sprawled on the floor, blood seeping out of his skull.

The mask is utterly worried for Cortex's mental health and state, but soon on joins in on the laughter.

They stay like that for what seems like hours before the bow completely broken man heads over to the island Crash and his family resided to announce the death of their hero.

The rest of the Bandicoot family stood in horror as the villain Cortex stood outside their small house holding the cold, lifeless body of their one and only, Crash Bandicoot.

Aku Aku cried out in horror as he tried to block the vision of Coco and Crunch, who just witnessed the post important person in their lives, held like a rag doll, dead, by their now life sworn enemy.

This pain to the Bandicoots and victory to the Cortex group was just the beginning of what would soon become the end of humankind as they knew it.

 ** _(A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the first fic on this account and I'm planning on writing a bit more, also starting my own AU! Constructive criticism is always accepted here!)_**


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